


A Warm Gun

by saltandbyrne



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Animal Death, Bisexual Female Character, Canonical Character Death, Child Abuse, Community: homebrewbingo, Dark, Demon Sex, Demonic Possession, Demons, F/F, F/M, Going to Hell, Hellhounds, Molestation, Oral Sex, Parent/Child Incest, Sexual Content, Spirit Animals, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-30
Updated: 2012-11-30
Packaged: 2017-11-19 17:41:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/575911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltandbyrne/pseuds/saltandbyrne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, death is the best beginning she can hope for.  A first kiss and a last one bookend the life of Bela Talbot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Warm Gun

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [spn_reversebang](http://spn-reversebang.livejournal.com/) 2012 challenge. Thank you to verucasalt123 for the beta. **Please** , if you are easily triggered by mentions of childhood sexual abuse, death, or violence, please be kind to yourself and proceed with caution.
> 
> I'm using this for the "lesbians" square on my homebrewbingo card.

They never talk about how much it hurts.

 

Certainly, they all acknowledge the emotional distress, the great betrayal of trust and innocence. But no one seems to talk about the _pain_. Searing, ripping, tearing, burning pain is Abby's first mortal memory. It will also be her last.

 

She hates him, hates him with a fire that sears her from the inside and keeps her safe. She goes away sometimes, somewhere deep inside of herself that's red and burning, a secret ember that she keeps tucked inside her heart. Despite a life of wealth and privilege, this is the only thing she truly owns.

 

She hates her, too, the other. At least her father has the decency to be a monster. Her mother just looks the other way. 

 

The ancient Egyptians believed that when someone died, Osiris weighed her heart against a feather. If her guilt outweighed the feather, she went to Hell. Abby's scales will be tipped with a profound regret that she didn't kill her parents sooner.

 

Abby's never liked other children. She was old for her age long before her father got to her. She could see things they couldn't. Her teachers found her unnerving, and her peers found her ability to know things she ought not to know deeply unsettling. The riding master found her fluency with cats to be an ill omen.

 

The girl on the swing, however, is not a girl. Abby's seen her kind before. Her face has the same melted quality as the Dali painting her mother always shows off to guests. Much like the Dali, Abby can still see the hideous beauty in it, even if her parents and their friends can't. “There will be time, there will be time, to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet,” Abby murmurs to herself as she watches the dead leaves swirl around her patent leather shoes. 

 

The swing next to her creaks to a halt, a matching set of mary-janes toeing the ground. “There will be time to murder and create.” Abby wonders if her eyes would burn red like that if she ever showed anyone her true face.

 

Ten years comprises the sum total of Abby's sentience. It seems an impossibly long span of time. “It must look like an accident.” 

 

“Of course.” The blonde girl on the swing asks Abby for one little thing, one of the many four letter words like _love_ and _hope_ that Abby never bothered believing in. Abby thinks of the fire in her stomach, the nauseous emptiness that fills her during the worst times, the waiting times. She thinks of the calm that settles over her once it starts, the relief of dread laid aside for a known torment. 

 

“Yes.” She wonders what they'll think when they open her up and find nothing inside. “Tomorrow night.”

 

The graveyard dirt is easily obtained from the family plot on the property. Her year-nine school picture shows a lanky girl with a barrette in her hair and empty eyes. 

 

The horses in the stables merely tolerate Abby, whickering and looking the other way as she calls the cats. She holds the knife in front of her, unwilling to hide her purpose from the creatures who have always given her comfort. 

 

Rows of flint-black eyes consider her, shining diaphanous green and yellow as they turn one to the other in silent communication. They blink as one, slinking back into the darkness as one comes forward. He's an old tom, still raven-black despite his years. He rubs against her legs with solemn dignity before laying on his side, neck stretched out in supplication.

 

“Thank you,” Abby whispers, making short work of it and sealing the box shut as the old tom's blood soaks her picture. She buries him by the hedge before she summons the red-eyed girl and seals her fate.

 

Abby will consider this her first kiss, and she will kiss the same lips before she dies.

 

*

Abigail. Hebrew derivation. _Her father's joy_. In the bible, Abigail prostrates herself in front of David and begs him “not to have on his conscience the staggering burden of needless bloodshed.” Abby can appreciate the irony, but the name is not hers to keep.

 

Bela Lugosi may be dead, but Bela Talbot is alive and well. At 7 AM on her eighteenth birthday, she changes her name and never looks back.

 

Smiling still feels strange to her, the muscles of her face unaccustomed to it. But it is her best expression, and one that will open doors for her as she makes her way across the world. 

 

Her shipmates avoid her for the most part. Sailors are a superstitious lot, and once the word of Bela's trunk got around the cabins she couldn't make her way on deck without getting the devil's horns or a ward against the evil eye. 

 

He comes to stand next to her by the railing, a rakish tilt to his hat and a pearl tiepin nestled in blood-red silk. Bela fingers the revolver in her pocket, watching the black waves churn in the wake of the steamer.

 

“Happy to see me?” They're gone in a flash as he blinks, a burst of red against the night sky. 

 

Bela's mouth runs hot and dry, cold salt air stinging her face. “I didn't think you made house calls.” 

 

“I'm on sabbatical.” He smiles and tilts his head. “What are you going to do, Bela?” He says her name in a hushed whisper like he's in on the secret. 

 

“I'm setting up shop in the States.” She thinks of her trunk full of dead man's bones and _hamsas_ made from the hands of virgins. “Import-export, you could say.” 

 

Her abilities have increased tenfold in the past year. She can see through the other side and summon spirits with the difficulty of a mild headache. The cats tell her their secrets.

 

“You have a talent, Bela. I can help you.” He moves closer to her, raising the hackles on the back of her neck in fear and an unaccustomed sort of arousal. “I can make you stronger.”

 

“And why would you do that?” Bela knows better than to trust unsolicited help.

 

“Because they don't want me to.” The demon steps closer, occupying her personal space in a way that would normally make her pull the safety off her gun. “Because I've traded more souls than there are stars in the sky, and I've never seen one like yours.” Bela can feel his breath against her ear, ice-cold and electrifying. “They don't see it yet, but they will.” 

 

He shakes his head and sighs. “Pearls before swine. They have no idea what they bought.” Bela closes her eyes and imagines she can feel the heat of his eyes burning into her, dancing with the flames licking at her mortgaged soul. He brings his lips close enough to brush over her ear. “I'll find you.” When she opens her eyes, he's gone.

 

She doesn't see him for the rest of the crossing.

 

Long Island City is full of ghosts, cats, and sleek new high-rise apartments. The siamese is waiting for her when she arrives. 

 

“May I call you Boris?” He licks an elegant paw in reply and saunters off to inspect her choice of furniture, settling on an ottoman. 

 

Bela has her phone in one hand and a cocktail in the other when Boris starts to purr, settling in front of the door. It had taken longer than Bela had expected.

 

She'll be shorter than Bela when she takes those boots off. There's no hat this time, but the waves of black curls falling over her shoulders have the same effect. Her leather jacket has a skull pin in the lapel. It has pearls for eyes. She smiles like a jackal and taps her black-lacquered fingernails against the doorframe.

 

“Hello, Bela.”

 

*

“You've been causing quite a stir, my dear.” Centuries of demonic influence can't erase the Scotsman from his face, or his voice. This is Crowley, and his taste in whiskey is as admirable as his intentions are suspect.

 

“Have I?” Bela drags the lipstick across her mouth, calmly pressing her lips together. Being cornered by a demon in the ladies' room is no reason to forego appearances. 

 

“Indeed.” He hands her a tissue, which she takes and uses to blot her lips. “I'm told you're talented at … procuring certain rare items.” Bela arches an eyebrow at him in the mirror as he continues. “There's a certain item that I'm most desirous of possessing.” 

 

“That all depends on what you're willing to pay, Mr...” Bela trails off, adjusting the straps of her black cocktail dress. 

 

“You know who I am.” Crowley stands next to her and straightens his tie in a parody of her own fussing. “And you know what I can offer you.”

 

A year. Bela has enough money to last ten lifetimes, and she has precisely 365 more days to enjoy it. She supposes that makes this an anniversary visit.

 

“You get the Colt from the Winchester boys, I call the whole thing off. With a few terms, tomato tomahto, that sort of thing.” He holds his hands out.

 

Bela fingers the pearl-tipped pin in her hair. What would Meg say? Aside from “Fuck him,” of course. Bela thinks of Meg's lips, plum-red and icy-hot against hers. She thinks of Boris, and gin, and Santorini. 

 

“I'll do it.” She snaps her purse shut. “Now if you'll excuse me, I have a room full of society matrons that I intend to rob blind.”

 

Crowley shakes her hand as Bela narrows her eyes. “No kiss?” He smirks at her. “Afraid you're not my type, love.” 

 

Bela comes home 50,000 dollars richer and filled with a strange sensation, one of those four-letter words that belong to people who own their souls and don't have itinerant demon girlfriends.

 

The pin pierces her fingertip with practiced ease, a red drop welling up onto the skin that Meg burned off while they made love. She stains the paper red and sets it ablaze, watching it burn in the brazier until she feels the familiar cold tickling the back of her neck.

 

“What have you done?” Meg sounds reproachful and reverent, sliding the straps of Bela's dress off. Her leather jacket hits the floor as she spins Bela around, pressing in close as Bela pulls Meg's shirt off. Meg's skin is cold and smooth like marble. “You know you can't trust him,” Meg says huskily, nipping at Bela's neck as she lets her dress fall to the floor.

 

“Of course not. Everyone knows you can't trust demons.” Meg's jeans are almost too tight for Bela's hand to slide inside, but she manages. Meg fists her hand in Bela's hair as they stumble back to the bedroom. 

 

“I can make you stronger.” Meg bruises her lips as she slides two fingers inside, curling them and running her thumb over Bela's clit. “More powerful.” Bela moans as Meg bites at her collarbone, moving down to suck Bela's nipple into her mouth as she works her fingers with the practice of centuries. Bela comes with her hands in Meg's hair, shuddering around her fingers.

 

“You ready?” They've only done this a few times before. Meg says it's too dangerous, that the addiction can drive people mad. 

 

The taste is strange in her mouth, ferric and frostbitten as it slides down her throat. Meg's blood hits her like a fat line of coke, thrumming through her veins and lighting up her mild psychic powers until she can see the world unfold before her. The blood hits her stomach and quenches the fire inside her, forging her into something sharp and deadly.

 

Those boys are screwed.

*

“Henriksen.” Bela drums her fingers against the bar, narrowing her eyes. “Dutch Antilles?”

 

He's in civilian clothes, but he may as well have a “FED” sign hanging around his neck. Bela knows everything about him, even if they've only just met. Special Agent Victor Henriksen nods and smiles, impressed.

 

“My father was from Sint Maarten.” He pronounces it correctly, which is to say he sounds like he's stifled a sneeze. 

 

“Lovely place.” Bela leans back against the bar, making it that much easier for the Special Agent to imagine her on a topless beach.

 

“I wouldn't know.” He swirls his glass, rum and coke, decidedly colonial but undeniably delicious. “Don't get much vacation time.”

 

“And what do you do, Mr. Henriksen?” Like he's going to answer truthfully.

 

“Security.” Closer than she would have thought.

 

“I've always liked a man in uniform.”

 

They're up to her room two drinks later, key-card falling behind the Philippe Starck chair as Victor sets her on the desk and runs his hand up her thigh. There's something frighteningly earnest in the way he kisses her, like it's been too long since he's done something he's good at. 

 

The plexiglass chair hits the floor as he spins her around, his hands holding her up by her ass as she wraps her legs around his waist. He's firm without being rough, setting her down with a soft bounce against the featherbed. 

 

He's even better naked than she'd hoped, all lean muscle and honey-brown skin. His arms stand out strong and gleaming against her own pale skin, and Bela knows they look good together as he kisses his way down her stomach.

 

He sinks his teeth into the crook of her thigh, soft enough to make her roll her eyes and hips in concert. He licks a slow stripe up her pussy, going slow to fast and soft to hard until she comes with one hand on his head and the other balled into 2000-thread-count sheets.

 

He looks good underneath her, lip clenched in his teeth as she sinks onto him, tight and slick. Bela arches back and closes her eyes, rolling her hips and smiling. Meg would like this one.

 

She can feel his body tensing up beneath her, feel his hands landing firm on her thighs. He'll leave some nice marks for Meg to bite at. 

 

His neck strains out as he throws his head back, plush lips parted open in a wordless groan as his hips stutter erratically under her. Bela watches as his eyes roll back into his head, snapping open to gleam pallid and blank at her before their honey-brown returns.

 

The room tilts to something non-Euclidian and nightmarish, Meg's blood having opened a door she can't close. Bela hopes her gasp is taken for arousal. 

 

Victor Henriksen is going to die soon, by the same hand that will come for Bela's soul.

 

She's set herself to rights by the time he comes to, sliding off him with practiced ease and a smile she doesn't mean. She slides her dress back on and toes into her shoes as she taps at her phone.

 

“I almost forgot,” she says without looking up, Victor's jacket springing to life from its heap on the floor as his phone buzzes in the pocket. He picks it up after Bela finally shoots a pointed eyebrow at him.

 

“That's where you'll find the Winchesters, in precisely 24 hours.” Bela shakes her hair out, knowing Meg will tease her about showing up with bed-hair. The look on Victor's face is a priceless mix of shock and bloodlust, eyes wide with residual arousal and the heat of a new hunt. 

 

The world will be less without him.

 

“You -” Bela can't help but quiet him with a kiss, sweet and warm with her own rich taste. She turns before she opens the door, looking him over one last time.

 

“Goodbye, Special Agent Henriksen.”

*

“You've got to learn to read the fine print, love.” Crowley dangles the Colt from his fingers, pursing his lips. “Tomato, tomahto...”

 

Bela clenches her fist, chafing against her helplessness. It's a feeling she was happy to forget.

 

“But you said-” She grabs for the gun.

 

“Boss's orders, darling.” He wags his finger at her. “But Lilith is prepared to make another deal.”

 

Bela's heard them, a faint snarl here, a soft bark echoing behind her. Hellhounds. She's never been a dog person.

 

“Lilith wants the Winchesters dead.” Crowley arches an eloquent eyebrow and holds his palms out. 

 

She gets a kiss this time, dry and chaste. 

 

It'll be a shame to kill them. They're cute, and hopelessly earnest in that way of puppies and little boys. But needs must, and Bela's not going down without a fight. 

 

That empty space inside of her, molten hot and roiling fast, subsides to make way for something new, something gentle and strange. Hope is the thing with feathers, and Bela flies down the I-90 with hell at her heels.

 

Erie, Pennsylvania is the kind of ramshackle, rust-belt town Bela tries to avoid. The eponymous motel hums with the neon signs and vending machines and clanking ice makers that sing their tune in every cheap accommodation. The cacophony isn't loud enough to drown out the deep-throated howls that curl around the edges of her hearing. 

 

Bela's hands shake as she picks the lock, dropping a pin as a set of red eyes dance in the periphery of her vision. The hairs on her neck stand up as she wills herself to focus on the lock, not to turn her head towards the rumbling growl at her back.

 

She knows it isn't going to work before she sets foot in the room, squeezing the trigger for lack of any better response. She takes a moment to wonder where they found time to buy sex dolls, or whether they just keep them in the trunk of that “look how big my dick is” car of theirs, before the phone rings.

 

Dean is a man on fire, angry and desperate. She tries to remember feeling like that, like she was invincible and had nothing left to lose. Let him go after Lilith. She tells him what she can, flinching as she hears the baying at the window.

 

“I'll see you in Hell.” 

 

The Devil's shoestring won't give her much time, but she scatters it over the threshold before pricking her finger. The lump in her throat is tight and bitter.

 

She's afraid.

 

Her breath draws in a burning chill, the scent of ice drained of well-savored whiskey. 

 

“Having a party without me?” Meg smirks at the blowup dolls before sinking to her knees. She tilts Bela's head up with a finger on her chin, taking in the novel sight of Bela with tears in her eyes. 

 

“They're coming, I can't -” Bela sobs.

 

“Shh, I know.” Meg's lips are a respite, soothing her until she can still herself in Meg's arms. 

 

“I don't want to die,” Bela whispers, tucking her face against Meg's shoulder. 

 

Meg pulls her closer. “I could tell you some shit about a butterfly and a chrysalis, but we're short on time, aren't we.” 

 

This will be Bela's last kiss. It isn't earth-shattering or anything like that. It's soft, and familiar, and it makes the hope in Bela's chest beat its wings and pray that she hasn't lived her life for nothing.

 

They both turn their heads as the door shakes, growls and scratches echoing off the flimsy walls.

 

The gun is still warm in her palm, a contrast to the cool relief of Meg's hand over hers as she nods.

 

“I'll find you.” Meg cups her cheek and smiles.

 

All those four-letter words twist up inside of her, love and pain and fear and hope.

 

Bela closes her eyes and pulls the trigger.

*

“Must you talk like that?” Bela elegantly spits out her tooth and regards Alastair. “That lisp is vulgar.”

 

His eyes light up as he cackles, slapping his hand against his leg. The scalpel gleams red in the flickering light. Everything here is red, endless shades Bela couldn't possibly name. It's so tedious.

 

She rolls her eyes as Alastair steadies the blade in his hand. There is nothing this man can teach her about pain that she hadn't learned ten times over before her twelfth birthday.

 

Time is funny here, slipshod and indeterminate. She doesn't sleep, or dream. Sometimes things move so fast her head spins, a whirling zoetrope of blood and screams. The waiting is molasses-slow and hateful. The waiting was always the worst.

 

“It won't be much longer.” She looks down at Boris, purring against her charred feet. The cats come and go, sharing their secrets and sneering at the slavering hellhounds. She can understand them now, Bastet's tongue being the lingua franca of soulless things.

 

Bela tries to respond, to ask what it is. She knows she's waiting, but for what? Boris is gone by the time she finds her voice, a toothless lisp that still sounds better than Alastair.

 

An hour, a year, an eternity later, Bela opens her eyes and sees her face reflected back in twin pools of onyx. Waves of black hair frame the woman's face, and Bela's fingers itch with phantom familiarity. 

 

“Told you I'd find you.”

 

The hooks slide out of her with a burning pop, each one met with a hiss of blistering pain as the dark-haired woman rubs blood from her slashed wrist into the wound. Bela's mind trips over itself as her feet touch ground. Pearls and blood and the clink of ice cubes rush from her memory and wash over her mouth, teeth and tongue coming together in recognition.

 

“Meg.” Bela staggers as Meg pulls her upright. “Your eyes.”

 

“New boss. I'll explain later,” Meg smiles at her. “We gotta go while Alastair's distracted by the new arrival.”

 

“Who is it?” Bela winces as Meg propels her forward.

 

“Just somebody that you used to know.” Meg urges her on, past tableau vivant of every imaginable torture. Bela can feel Meg's blood seeping into her, healing and purifying her.

 

She does a double take as they pass a man Bela recognizes instantly, the face of every nightmare she's ever had. He's weeping. Meg feels her stop and turns to look, pausing to take in a sharp breath before pulling Bela onwards. They stop at a fork in the road, where a black tomcat is waiting for them.

 

“Good thing you've got friends in high places,” Meg says, nodding at the tom. The cat struts over to Bela, gossamer eyes regarding her. 

 

“Hello again,” Bela says faintly, earning her a twitch of his tail. 

 

“We're hitching a ride with him.” Meg grips her tight. “This might tickle.”

 

The tom blinks his eyes closed, and Bela explodes. 

 

Incorporeality is a freeing and terrifying experience. She can feel the air mingling with the outer limits of her being, molecules unbending and reforming as she follows the black-hole pull of her new body. She slides into it like a Savile suit, tailored and fitted perfectly with the weft and weave of auburn hair and soft skin. Meg chose well.

 

Newer, fuller lips press against Meg's in the first of many first kisses.

 

“That was your father.” Days later, Meg strokes her hip as they lay on the warehouse floor, borrowed bodies spent and flush.

 

“I was so scared of him,” Bela murmurs. “But I'm not any more. I can't feel anything.” She blinks her eyes to black, sensing the infinite possibility of new life before her. “I understand now. It's glorious.”

 

Meg kisses her, sealing the last deal that Bela will ever make. 

 

“I have so much to teach you.”

 

**Author's Note:**

>  _When you're sad and when you're lonely_  
>  And you haven't got a friend  
> Just remember that death is not the end  
> And all that you held sacred  
> Falls down and does not mend  
> Just remember that death is not the end  
> Not the end, not the end  
> Just remember that death is not the end  
> When you're standing on the crossroads  
> That you cannot comprehend  
> Just remember that death is not the end  
> -Bob Dylan, Death Is Not The End
> 
>  
> 
> The title of this song comes from [Happiness is A Warm Gun by The Beatles](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTU2Y0VFH0E)
> 
> Young Bela and Meg quote from [The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAO3QTU4PzY)
> 
> Abigail is mentioned in 1:Samuel in the Old Testament.
> 
>  
> 
> [This is my favorite version of Death Is Not The End](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJXN5VPkyH8)
> 
>  
> 
> “Cat's are good. Half-in, half-out anyway.” - Constantine


End file.
